January 2, 2025

“A Must-Have for the Holidays” by Elizabeth HarmonPosted by

Elizabeth Harmon

A MUST-HAVE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Because I am 23 and not married,
do not have at least one child,
cannot fit my old jeans over my hips,
eat the dessert that’s meant for decoration,
never had the ability to wear
red lipstick with anonymity,
and do not have anyone to share
the season’s fullness with,
I am a failure. (Yes, I know my mother
was barely 21 when she decided to staple down,
don’t remind me.)
I can (and do) wear a turtleneck
to hide my lack of cleavage
and tuck my rounded chin into
the snug cushion of the top,
avoid standing too much so that
couch pillows fold in around me
instead of my lumpiness hanging out,
and make sure not to wear rings
that pudge out my fingers.
And I know that if only
I could throw a plate at my father’s head,
then I could do anything.
If I could haul off half-cocked and cocksure
with yellow, pumpkin-stained,
china blossom plates in my hand
and chuck them against a doorjamb,
then I’d be almost guaranteed that
tomorrow would be a good day,
or at least ordinary enough to stand.
 

—from Rattle #33, Summer 2010

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Elizabeth Harmon: “Being from a Southern state means being considered an old maid if you’re not married before you’re 22. I’d been one for a little while when this poem was written. It was my reaction to an interestingly typical family Thanksgiving dinner where my childhood chubbiness, previous boyfriend, lack of current potential mates and devotion to work were all discussed. Doesn’t poetry love to invoke the past and future too?”

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January 1, 2025

“Single Mom Finally in Repose” by Sarah E. AziziPosted by

Sarah E. Azizi

SINGLE MOM FINALLY IN REPOSE

A father & son are having 
a water balloon fight. 
They invite me to join, 
but I’ve got the skittish dog 
w/ me, the one who took 
a good six years to trust us. 
I shake my head, & we weave 
our way up the path. 
New parents push 
their baby in a swing 
& my inner mother hears 
the cries as more scared 
than excited, but I quiet 
the impulse to intercede. 
They slow down into a game 
of peek-a-boo, & little one coos
as we come around the bend.
 
I’d be over the moon to push 
my chunky baby in a swing
again, but I feel lucky 
enough where we’re at. I take 
care of us, no man’s around 
to hover or critique, 
& the seasons turn so fast. 
Summer’s cresting, but before 
the light goes dim at dusk 
hot air balloons will bloom 
through the New Mexico sky. 
I open the gate to our yard 
& crouch to unleash 
our supreme listener. Maybe,
I tell her cocked head, 
graying beard, & wild 
brows, this year I’ll ride one. 
My kid peeks thru the blinds, 
flings open the door, & rushes 
to spill the teenage tea I missed 
in the hour just past. I slide off 
my sneakers & take it all in: 
this brilliant stream of sound; 
our tidy, private space;
these prime years of motherhood;
the joy of being in one place.
 

—from Rattle #86, Winter 2024

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Sarah E. Azizi: “I’ve written poetry since I read Amiri Baraka and June Jordan at 15 and realized poetry can do and be so many things. I’ve long had a penchant for writing from a place of optimism; Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark speaks to me therein—optimism is dangerous, hope is slippery, but that perilous slope demands my attention, regardless of what else I aim to write about. This poem teased me for nearly a year. The first half I truly experienced, and I knew there was something hidden in the experience; that walk was akin to every other walk I take, but slightly different. Somehow special. Finally, the second half of the poem arrived and said, Sar, you’re celebrating the joy of being in a state of after, full of possibility.” (web)

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December 31, 2024

“It’s Me Again” by Erica ReidPosted by

Erica Reid

IT’S ME AGAIN

What if a new year dawns & I don’t change?
Each January finds me as I was:
still moribund, still sensitive & strange.
I buy blank planners, scrub my house because
 
I crave the start a bright new year can bring—
but as I drain my last flute of champagne
I wait for change, & don’t feel anything.
Whatever I have been, I shall remain.
 
Somehow, the magic misses me. My friends
sign up for 5ks, vow to watch their weight,
or learn to knit. I’ll drink & overspend,
I’ll scarf the untouched French fries off their plate.
 
The world will count from ten, then kiss & cheer.
It’s me again. It’s yet another year.
 

—from Poets Respond

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Erica Reid: “I actually do feel hope around the new year, but only because poetry makes space for the other less charming sides of my personality.” (web)

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December 30, 2024

“After Rain” by Michael PfeiferPosted by

Paradigm Shift by Morgan Reed, abstract painting of people walking in the rain with umbrellas

Image: “Paradigm Shift” by Morgan Reed. “After Rain” was written by Michael Pfeifer for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Michael Pfeifer

AFTER RAIN

She appears as blue
shadows across the market
dust at Adiba
where the umbrella-makers rattle
and shape their ephemera,
confident as a mystery
waiting to be told.
Holding a ticket
for a train of sand and fear.
Pale resurrection sisters
surround her. Their dark
umbrellas eclipse the sun
to hide her face. Her face
a streambed of fog
and remembrance,
a collapsing umbrella after rain.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
December 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “For a relatively short poem, ‘After Rain’ speaks volumes, using brief imagistic phrases to create a narrative that feels real and multifaceted. Morgan Reed’s image does this, too—the use of color and sense of movement allow the viewer to imagine the scene coming alive with sound and motion. The poet packs a great deal of meaning into illusorily simple phrases like ‘shape their ephemera,’ ‘confident as a mystery,’ and ‘a train of sand and fear.’ That one of the women in the painting—all of whom have their backs turned to us, in an artistic decision that seems significant—is described as having a face like ‘a collapsing umbrella after rain’ is both a beautiful, evocative piece of imagery and a congruous summation of the main themes of the painting.”

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December 29, 2024

“Functional Convergence” by Eliza GilbertPosted by

Eliza Gilbert

FUNCTIONAL CONVERGENCE

If a taxi is untaxied outside
the Herald Square Macy’s
on Christmas Eve like a kind of post
-modern Vitruvian centerpiece,
a kind of heavy metal suckling
pig, how much will the damage
—assuming no insurance coverage
—how much will the damage damage
the cabby’s next one hundred afternoons?
 
Assuming no insurance coverage,
assuming 15k as the average cost
of a medical mystery, assuming MRI
and BMI and smoking history and a 45%
chance of rain, is the cabby’s episode
diagnosable by robot? Pin-downable
by vector? Bio-statistically sound?
 
If the flash-dancing club that owns
the taxi’s topper is displeased
with that night’s great yellow flay,
and if there is positively no returning
the gut-naked bits steaming beneath
the hood to canonical form, how much
income chugs to the scrap yard?
Is the car crusher’s operator whistling
Lou Reed? If so, reconfigure
the golden ratio of screech to symphony.
Reconsider aftermath as an act
of orthogonal decomposition.
 
If three out of six of the pedestrians
struck refuse medical attention, what is the exponent
of ache, and does it carry? How long? How far?
How many times do the blue-and-reds
HELLO across their shock-sparkled eyes
before they return to their bodies and calculate
the net hemorrhage of twenty minutes
to Lenox Hill, fifteen in X-ray, ninety-two
thumbing holes in the exam table’s fleshy crepe?
Determine the half-life of the half-life
of a pill called UNLUCK. Wrap it
in cheese like you would for a Labrador
and feed the world—it’s Christmas time!
All regression is linear if you have eyes
in the back of your head. My hair
is falling out so soon I will see everything.
 

—from Poets Respond

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Eliza Gilbert: “A taxi crashed outside the Herald Square Macy’s on Christmas day. Six pedestrians were struck, but three refused medical attention. I imagine they must have partaken in a kind of life mathematics we all know.” (web)

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December 28, 2024

“I Can’t Sleep So I’ll Tell You a Story” by Tom C. HunleyPosted by

Tom C. Hunley

I CAN’T SLEEP SO I’LL TELL YOU A STORY

Every cricket chirping sounds, to me,
like my son’s garage band must sound
to the neighbor who calls, twice a week,
and threatens to call the cops, but never does.
You can’t call the cops on crickets.
You can’t even call their parents.
I can hear a train in the distance.
In the distance, people are making
even more distance
between themselves and this place.
Years ago, when I was teaching poetry
at a prison, miles away
from the nearest bus stop,
I used to hitchhike right in front of the prison.
I was always surprised when anyone stopped.
I wondered if my thumb screamed
“not the thumb of an escaped convict!”
Once a blonde picked me up
on her way back from visiting her husband.
She was beautiful like a sunset, if a sunset
had been raised in a trailer park.
Her husband had burned down their house
with her in it, her and her mother.
Change of heart, he rushed back in
for her, but left his mother-in-law to the flames.
The blonde shrugged that he still excited her,
said he asked her to wear skirts with no panties
on visits. I don’t know what my face said,
but she flipped her skirt up, just for a second,
said “Now you believe me.” My face
said I was embarrassed, and she laughed.
I lie here thinking of all the places
people are going where I haven’t been,
thinking of the place where that prisoner had been,
a place where I gawked at the doorway,
but didn’t knock, and never mind the moon,
never mind the stars, I lie here
in the noisy darkness, thinking
of all the places it could take a person.
 

—from Rattle #26, Winter 2006

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Tom C. Hunley: “When I was a teenager, I was captivated by Kevin J. O’Connor’s portrayal of a teenage beat poet in Peggy Sue Got Married. Shortly thereafter, I picked up Allen Ginsberg’s Empty Mirror and read ‘I am flesh and blood, but my mind is the focus of much lightning.’ I felt that way about myself. Every decision I’ve made since then has been impacted by my desire to hang onto that feeling.” (web)

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December 27, 2024

“Blue Sky” by Penny HarterPosted by

Penny Harter

BLUE SKY

On weekends when the woman walks up hills, she does it to see the sun. At sea level, thick smog obliterates the sky, a gray and toxic smothering. Despite the altitude, once she gets above it she breathes easier. She has not seen such a blue sky from down below since childhood.
 
masquerade party—
strangers crowding into
a downtown loft
 
When she tries to get some of her co-workers from the factory to climb with her, they merely laugh. “But you can see the sun,” she exclaims. “And the sky is blue!” Her friends prefer the mall or the movies, so she climbs alone.
 
shooting star—
how briefly its wake
marks the dark
 
Years pass, and she has to climb higher and higher. Having retired, she can climb more often, but it’s slower going now. One day when she arrives above the timber line, stumbling among rocks shining with lichen, she is breathing in stabbing gasps. Soon she will be too old for this, she thinks. Head spinning, she clings to a nearby boulder and stares up into the blazing heavens. Then she looks down at the tide of gray creeping up the slopes. She knows it is only a question of time until she will be forced to go up and up.
 
moon colony—
again, the supply ship
arrives late
 

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
Tribute to Speculative Poetry

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Penny Harter: “One late winter afternoon in the early 1960s, while sitting in the Douglass College library, I happened on a Conrad Aiken poem capturing a similar late winter afternoon, and time stood still. I was transfixed. I did not yet know I would be a poet, although the following spring I chose Emerson’s essay ‘The Poet’ for an American literature paper. Then, in the late 1960s, while waiting in a school parking lot for my then-husband to come out from an after-school meeting, I grabbed a dry-cleaner slip from my purse and began to write on the back of it a poem about how quickly the brilliant sunset was fading between the dark branches of a winter tree. It was the first poem I had to write—and when I held the finished poem, I felt something I’d not felt before: a passion! From that time on, I’ve never stopped. I write about what matters most to me, hoping that my poems can reach out and touch others. I write poems for the Earth and our planet in the cosmos; poems of memory and family; and poems probing the riddle of time, hoping to capture our shared experiences of love, and loss. I have written, and still am writing, work to process my grief at the loss of my husband in October, 2008. Above all, I write because I must.” (web)

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